Gender Nonconformity Research Paper

Childhood Gender Nonconformity: A Risk Indicator for Childhood Abuse and
Posttraumatic Stress in Youth
Andrea L. Roberts, Margaret Rosario, Heather L. Corliss, Karestan C. Koenen and S.
Bryn Austin
Pediatrics; originally published online February 20, 2012;
DOI: 10.1542/peds.2011-1804

The online version of this article, along with updated information and services, is located on the World Wide Web at: http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/early/2012/02/15/peds.2011-1804 PEDIATRICS is the official journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics. A monthly publication, it has been published continuously since 1948. PEDIATRICS is owned, published, and trademarked by the American Academy of Pediatrics, 141 Northwest Point
Boulevard,
We examined the top decile of gender nonconformity to identify children who may have noticeably differed from the average gender expression for their sex and because preliminary analyses indicated a nonlinear relationship between nonconformity and our outcomes. We use recalled gender nonconformity from the 2005 wave because it was most proximate to childhood. A score created from identical questions in the 2007 wave was used for participants missing 2005 nonconformity data (n = 1443, 14.6% of respondents). Agreement between the
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2005 and 2007 assessments of childhood gender nonconformity was moderate (continuous measure: correlation
= 0.74; ordinal measure: weighted k =
0.52, agreement = 65.5%). Persons missing gender nonconformity responses in both waves were excluded from analyses (n = 303, 3.1%).
Childhood Abuse
All abuse questions asked separately about abuse that occurred during childhood before age 11 years and abuse that occurred when a teenager, defined as ages 11 to 17 years. We created separate variables for these 2 time periods. Physical abuse in each time period was measured with 4 questions from the Conflict Tactics Scales regarding frequency with which an adult
Sexual abuse was measured with 2 questions that asked the respondent first about being touched by or forced to touch an adult or older child in a sexual way when she or he did not want to, and second about an adult or older child forcing or attempting to force sexual activity by threatening, holding down, or hurting the respondent.31 An affirmative response to either question was considered sexual abuse, which was coded present or absent. Psychological abuse was measured with 4 questions about frequency of adults in the family yelling and screaming, saying hurtful or insulting things, punishing in a way that seemed cruel, and threatening serious physical harm.32 Each psychological abuse item was coded from 0
(never) to 4 (very often), and a score was formed from the sum. Respondents
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who were in the top decile of this score were considered psychologically abused.33,34 Lifetime Probable